First of all, I am proud of our founder John Harthorne and the whole MassChallenge team. Usually the Nasdaq bell ringers are CEOs of companies celebrating their IPOs, but when there is no IPO, they invite a non-profit to ring the bell, and today it was MassChallenge.

John Harthorne, founder and CEO of MassChallenge, reflected upon how far MassChallenge has come since 2009. He acknowledged that the success of the organization is due in a large part to community contributions, including (in no particular order):

In anticipation of the announcement of the 128 Finalists for MassChallenge's 2014 program tomorrow, we took a look at just how quickly each class has recieved benefit from our accelerator. As the graph below demonstrates, the class of 2013 has already raised $65M, nearly double what most previously classes have collectively raised 6-months after the accelerator.

An awesome pool of over 200 judges donated their time (1,000+ hours!) and lended their expertise this at this year's round 2 judging to give startups constructive and in-depth feedback on their pitches. These judges helped us craft an investor-pitch, board-room-type atmosphere that not only gives entrepreneurs the experience they need to thrive in the innovation community, but also gives these semi-finalists a taste of what the summer would look like if they are accepted!

Contrary to popular belief, the "Mass" in MassChallenge does not stand for "Massachusetts." In fact, a fun secret about MassChallenge is that it actually stands for "massive!" How massive? The map doesn't lie: